March 2022 - Page 24 of 25

Now you can send your name to the moon

The United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), has invited the public to send their names to their database that will be leaving for the moon as early as May, NASA announced in their blog post.

Artemis I will be the first-ever, un-crewed space flight test of the Space Launch System and the Orion spacecraft. The mighty rocket is going to have a trip around the moon and may create a path for the first-ever lunar trip with a woman and a person of colour by 2025.

Once you submit your name, NASA will create a virtual boarding pass for you as well. The flash drive of all the names will orbit the moon for more than three weeks.

On March 17, NASA will hold a wet dress rehearsal, rolling out the combination of the spaceship and rocket to the launch pad of NASA’s Kennedy Space Centre in Florida. The data from the rehearsal will decide the actual date of the launch after judging the equipment and procedures.

“All eyes will be on the historic Launch Complex 39B when Orion and the Space Launch System (SLS) lift off for the first time from NASA’s modernized Kennedy Space Center in Florida,” the space agency said.

NASA has long-term goals where they plan to send Artemis II by 2024 if Artemis I proves to be successful. Artemis II is expected to have a team of astronauts orbit around the moon. Artemis III is planned next to be executed as well at the success of Artemis II.

If all goes well, by 2027, humans might be landing on the surface of the moon for the first time after 1972.

Afghans’ US embassy, lacking funds and support, to close

WASHINGTON: The Afghan embassy in Washington, under severe financial pressure and cut off from the new Taliban government in Kabul, will close down in the coming week, a senior State Department official confirmed Saturday.

Its diplomats, holdovers from the old government, now have a month to apply for US visas before being deported — though not back to Afghanistan, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Around 100 diplomats currently work at the embassy in Washington or at Afghan consulates in Los Angeles and in New York, according to The New York Times.

Roughly one-fourth have yet to apply to remain in the US, the American official said.

“The Afghan Embassy and consulates are under severe financial pressure. Their bank accounts are not available to them,” the official told AFP.

He added, “We have no intention of accrediting diplomats who are appointed by the Taliban at this time.” The group will retain its current diplomatic status for 30 days.

The official said the State Department had “now made arrangements in cooperation with the Afghan Embassy to facilitate an orderly shutdown of operations in a way that would protect and preserve all diplomatic mission property in the United States until operations are able to resume.”

The Taliban, who seized power in Kabul last August, are not recognised by the international community and they have not fully gained control of diplomatic missions set up under the previous government.

Many of the diplomats remain loyal to the old pro-Western government.

Meantime, Afghan diplomats no longer have access to several hundred thousand dollars in funding after banks — not the US government — froze their accounts, the US official said.

The accrediting of Taliban-appointed diplomats, were it to happen, is “something that would happen much further down the road, if we were moving toward recognition of them officially as the government of Afghanistan,” the official said.

He said the US side had had no discussions with the Taliban about the decision to close the embassy.

In January, the Afghan ambassador in Beijing resigned after months without any financing from Kabul.

In early February, following the visit of a Taliban delegation to Norway for talks with several Western diplomats, Taliban Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi told AFP that his government was getting closer to achieving recognition, saying, “This is our right.”

He said the international community wanted to interact with his government.

India says it accidentally fired a missile into Pakistan on Wednesday, blaming the incident on a “technical malfunction” during routine maintenance.

Delhi said it was “deeply regrettable” and expressed relief no one was killed.

Pakistan’s military said a “high-speed flying object” had crashed near the eastern city of Mian Channu and its flight path had endangered passenger flights.

Both countries have nuclear weapons.

In a statement, India’s defence ministry said: “On 9 March 2022, in the course of routine maintenance, a technical malfunction led to the accidental firing of a missile. The Government of India has taken a serious view and ordered a high-level Court of Enquiry.”

Islamabad warned Delhi to “be mindful of the unpleasant consequences of such negligence” and to avoid a repeat. The object had been launched from Sirsa in Haryana state, it said.

Pakistan’s air force said the missile travelled at Mach 3 – three times the speed of sound – at an altitude of 12,000m (40,000ft) and flew 124km (77 miles) in Pakistani airspace before crashing.

“The flight path of this object endangered many national and international passenger flights both in Indian and Pakistani airspace, as well as human life and property of ground,” said Pakistani military spokesman Major-General Babar Iftikharon Thursday.

On Friday, Pakistan’s foreign ministry said it had summoned India’s chargé d’affaires to complain about the incident.

Pakistan also urged India to share the findings of its investigation into what happened.

Are pigs the future of organ transplants?

Silence descends on the operating theatre and the tension builds until it’s almost a physical presence in the room.

Surgeons have just connected a pig’s kidney to a human body. The clamps have been released and human blood is now flowing into the pig organ.

“You could have heard a pin drop,” says transplant surgeon Dr Jayme Locke.

Success or failure will be determined in moments and there is now just a single question on everyone’s minds: “Pink or black?”

Using animal organs in the human body is an old idea, and has ranged from “zest for life” chimpanzee testicle implants to replacement kidneys and hearts taken from our primate relatives. The latter often ended in death soon afterwards. The problem is, our immune system treats the transplanted organ like an infection and attacks.

The focus these days is on pigs, as their organs are roughly the right size and we have centuries of experience farming them.

But the challenge of hyperacute rejection – keeping organs pink, not black – is the same. You can’t just pop down to the farm, choose a pig and transplant its organs. It’s taken huge advances in genetic engineering to alter pigs’ DNA so their organs are more compatible with our immune systems.

If the body unleashes a horrendous assault on the foreign organ – holes will be ripped in every cell in the pig tissue and the organ will clot from the inside out. It will go splotchy, then blue, then completely black within minutes.

If “hyperacute rejection” is avoided, the organ will blush pink with the flow of blood and oxygen.

“It turned beautiful and pink… the sense of relief, the sense of joy and hope just filled the room. We might have high-fived as well,” said Dr Locke, from the University of Alabama at Birmingham, in the US.

This operation was just one of a series of medical breakthroughs that have renewed interest in the field of xenotransplantation.

The recent kidney and heart transplants have taken organs from the specially designed “10-gene pig”.

It has one genetic tweak to prevent any donated organs responding to human growth hormones and growing out of control.

Another key alteration removes a sugary molecule, called alpha-Gal, which sticks to the surface of pig cells and acts like a gigantic flashing neon sign marking the tissue as absolutely alien.

A wing of our immune system, called the complement system, is constantly patrolling the body looking for alpha-Gal. That’s why organs can be rejected and killed moments after they are transplanted.

Two other “neon signs” were genetically removed and six human ones added in, acting like a camouflage net over the pig cells to help hide them from the immune system.

The resulting 10-gene pigs are then raised in sterile conditions so they are suitable for transplant.

The pair of pig kidneys were transplanted into the brain-dead body of Jim Parsons in September 2021.

He’d wanted to be an organ donor when he died and when his kidneys were donated, pig kidneys were put in their place with permission from his family.

Dr Locke describes the moment one of the kidneys started making urine as “remarkable” and feels xenotransplantation can “really change people’s lives, and to be blunt, save their lives”. She’s expecting to start clinical trials later this year.

That operation was a three-day-long experiment, but meanwhile, surgeons at the University of Maryland Medical Center were about to go one step further.

Their patient, David Bennett, 57, had severe heart failure. He was not deemed suitable for a human heart transplant and was being kept alive by an Ecmo machine, which supported his heart and lungs.

Mr Bennett described having a pig heart as a “shot in the dark”.

A 10-gene pig was driven to the hospital and on 7 January, its heart was placed inside David Bennett’s chest. The operation was tricky because Mr Bennett’s diseased heart had swollen, so connecting the blood vessels to the smaller pig-heart was a challenge.

Again there was the nervous moment to see whether the heart would be rapidly rejected, but it was beating and stayed pink. Dr Muhammad Mohiuddin, the hospital’s director of cardiac xenotransplantation, said he did not expect to witness this “in my lifetime”.

When I spoke to him on the one-month anniversary of the operation he said there were no signs of the organ being rejected, but Mr Bennett was still frail.

“We put a new Ferrari engine in a 1960s car. The engine is working great but the rest of the body has to adjust,” he said.

But Mr Bennett died two months after the transplant. The cause, and therefore the implications for xenotransplantation, is still uncertain.

Mr Bennett was very frail before the operation and it is possible that even the new heart was not enough.

No signs of organ rejection have been reported, but if detailed analysis of the heart shows signs of the immune system attacking it, the 10-gene pig may need further modifications to make its organs suitable for the human body.

Alternatively, it could come down to anatomy, and pig hearts may not be up to the job in a human body. Our hearts have to work much harder to fight gravity than a pig’s because we walk on two legs rather than four.

Chris Denning, a professor of stem cell biology at the University of Nottingham, said overcoming hyperacute rejection meant the heart transplant would be considered “a success”. He said if the issue was frailty, then xenotransplantation “could be successful in the future” but if it came down to anatomy then it could “be potentially a show-stopper”.

The hospital plans to continue doing clinical trials.

Pig hearts do not have to be as good as a human heart to still save huge numbers of lives, according to Prof John Wallwork, one of the UK’s most eminent transplant surgeons. Many people die waiting for a transplant.

Prof Wallwork, who conducted the world’s first heart-lung-liver transplant and was an early pioneer of xenotransplantation, says it’s better to give 1,000 people a 70% chance of survival with a pig heart than 100 people an 85% chance with a human heart.

“So if it’s not quite as good as human transplantation, then we’ve still done more good than not doing the 1,000 patients,” he said.

Xenotransplantation has always felt like the next big thing in transplant medicine. There’s no doubt a series of landmark operations have been performed, but only more research will tell us whether the field – and its grand dreams – will ever come of age.

Dr Locke added: “Our goal would be to have one 10-gene edited pig be able to save a patient with kidney failure, a patient with liver failure, a patient with heart failure and a patient with end-stage lung disease.

“That would be a remarkable accomplishment and I genuinely believe that we will be there during my lifetime.”

China reported near 3,400 new COVID-19 cases on Sunday, double the previous day.

BEIJING: China recorded almost 3,400 fresh COVID-19 cases on Sunday, double the previous day, forcing lockdowns on virus hotspots as the country contends with its gravest outbreak in two years.

A nationwide surge in cases has seen authorities close schools in Shanghai and lock down several northeastern cities, as almost 19 provinces battle clusters of the Omicron and Delta variants.

The city of Jilin has been partially locked down, with hundreds of neighbourhoods sealed up, an official announced Sunday, while Yanji, an urban area of nearly 700,000 bordering North Korea, was fully closed off.

China, where the virus was first detected in late 2019, has maintained a strict ‘zero-COVID’ policy enforced by swift lockdowns, travel restrictions and mass testing when clusters have emerged.

But the latest flare-up, driven by the highly transmissible Omicron variant and a spike in asymptomatic cases, is challenging that approach.

Zhang Yan, an official with the Jilin provincial health commission, admitted Sunday that local authorities’ virus response so far had been lacking.

“The emergency response mechanism in some areas is not robust enough, there is insufficient understanding of the characteristics of the Omicron variant… and judgment has been inaccurate,” he said at a government press briefing.

Residents of Jilin have completed six rounds of mass testing, local officials said. On Sunday the city reported over 500 cases of the Omicron variant.

The neighbouring city of Changchun — an industrial base of nine million people — was locked down Friday.

The smaller cities of Siping and Dunhua, both in Jilin province, were locked down Thursday and Friday, according to official announcements.

The mayor of Jilin and the head of the Changchun health commission were dismissed from their jobs Saturday, state media reported, in a sign of the political imperative placed on local authorities to squash virus clusters.

COVID-zero?

But fatigue with the strict approach has been showing in China, with officials increasingly urging softer and more targeted measures to contain the virus, while economists warn that tough clampdowns are hurting the economy.

As cases have climbed since late February, the response in different parts of the country has been generally softer and more targeted compared to December, when the city of Xi’an and its 13 million people were locked down for two weeks.

In China’s biggest city Shanghai, authorities have increasingly moved to temporarily lock down individual schools, businesses, restaurants and malls over close-contact fears rather than mass quarantines.

Long lines have been seen outside hospitals in the city as people rush to obtain a negative COVID test.

As cases rise, the country’s National Health Commission announced Friday that they would introduce the use of rapid antigen tests.

The kits will now be available online or at pharmacies for clinics and ordinary citizens to buy for “self-testing”, the health commission said.

Although nucleic acid tests will continue to be the main method of testing, the move suggests China may be anticipating that official efforts will not be able to contain the virus.

Last week, a top Chinese scientist said the country should aim to co-exist with the virus, like other nations, where Omicron has spread like wildfire.

But the government has also made clear that mass lockdowns remain an option.

Chinese Vice Premier Sun Chunlan, who frequently telegraphs top-level thinking on the pandemic response, on Saturday urged regions to quickly pounce on and clear outbreaks.

Saudi Arabia executes 81 men in one day for terrorism, other offences

RIYADH: Saudi Arabia executed 81 men including seven Yemenis and one Syrian on Saturday, the interior ministry said, in the kingdom’s biggest mass execution in decades.

The number dwarfed the 67 executions reported there in all of 2021 and the 27 in 2020.

Offences ranged from joining militant groups to holding “deviant beliefs”, the ministry said in a statement.

“These individuals, totalling 81, were convicted of various crimes including murdering innocent men, women and children,” the statement read.

“Crimes committed by these individuals also include pledging allegiance to foreign terrorist organisations, such as Daesh, al-Qaeda and the Houthis,” it added.

The ministry did not say how the executions were carried out.

The men included 37 Saudi nationals who were found guilty in a single case for attempting to assassinate security officers and targeting police stations and convoys, the statement added.

The mass execution is likely to bring back attention to Saudi Arabia’s human rights record at a time when world powers have been focused on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Rights groups have accused Saudi Arabia of enforcing restrictive laws on political and religious expression and criticised it for using the death penalty, including for defendants arrested when they were minors. read more

“There are prisoners of conscience on Saudi death row, and others arrested as children or charged with non-violent crimes,” Soraya Bauwens, deputy director of anti-death penalty charity Reprieve, said in a statement.

“We fear for every one of them following this brutal display of impunity,” she added.

Saudi Arabia denies accusations of human rights abuses and says it protects its national security through its laws.

The state SPA news agency said the accused were provided with the right to an attorney and were guaranteed their full rights under Saudi law during the judicial process.

The kingdom executed 63 people in one day in 1980, a year after militants seized the Grand Mosque in Makkah, according to state media reports.

A total of 47 people, including prominent Shi’ite cleric Nimr al-Nimr, were executed in one day in 2016.

US President Joe Biden has announced a ban on imports of Russian diamonds, seafood and vodka in the latest response to Russia’s war in Ukraine.

The US, European Union and other allies also plan to revoke Russia’s status as an equal trade partner, paving the way for further economic punishment.

The moves add to sanctions that have isolated Russia economically since the invasion.

Its currency has collapsed, while global firms rush to exit the country.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has likened Western sanctions on banks and oligarchs to a declaration of war. Moscow has also threatened to nationalise production plants or factories where work has been suspended.

Western allies announced further economic retaliation on Friday.

The European Union said it would ban imports of key Russian iron and steel products and bar new energy investments in the country, while the UK put sanctions on hundreds of Russian politicians.

The US, EU and UK also said they would cut off shipments of luxury goods to Russia.

Mr Biden said the latest steps will be “another crushing blow to the Russian economy”.

Revoking ‘most favoured nation’ status

Under international rules, designating a country a “most favoured nation” provides reciprocal trade privileges such as lower tariffs, taxes imposed at the border.

Stripping Russia of that status clears the way for higher tariffs on key products it sells such as mineral fuels, fertilisers and metals.

Mr Biden said he was coordinating the plans with the European Union and other advanced economies, including Canada and Japan, each of which will take similar steps.

In the US, Congress, which must act for the move to go into effect, has already declared itself in favour of the move.

Most Favoured Nation (MFN) is a status conferred by membership of the World Trade Organisation. It might sound as though it confers special advantages, but that’s not really the case.

In fact, it is a baseline designed to ensure all World Trade Organisation members are treated equally, unless they are members of a specific free trade area or agreement. Under normal circumstances, it limits countries’ ability to impose trade barriers against one another – or offer individual countries special concessions.

By removing this status from Russia, G7 countries will be able to target its exports with punitive tariffs, or taxes. In fact one of them, Canada, has already done so. Last week it imposed tariffs of 35% on all products coming from Russia and its compliant ally, Belarus.

In order to do this, Canada relied on an exemption contained in one of the WTO agreements, which allows members to take action they consider necessary to protect their “essential security interests”. It is likely the others will do the same.

In addition, Western allies said they planned to cut Russia off from accessing finance from international organisations such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.

“Russia cannot grossly violate international law and expect to benefit from being part of the international economic order,” the G7, a group of seven advanced economies including the UK, said in a statement.

The US ban on key Russian imports will deny Mr Putin more than $1bn in revenue, the White House said, while the ban on US exports of luxury goods hits trade worth about $550m per year.

That is just a fraction of the roughly $28bn worth of trade the US and Russia exchanged in 2019.

Mr Biden promised further measures, including tightening sanctions on oligarchs and their families.

“We’re going to continue to squeeze Putin,” Mr Biden said. “He is the aggressor and… must pay the price.”

Economists say the sanctions previously announced will throw Russia into a severe economic recession this year. But it is not clear that the economic disarray has altered Mr Putin’s military ambitions.

At a press conference on Thursday, White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki was asked when the weight of the sanctions might lead to a change in Mr Putin’s actions.

“Our objective of course is to bring an end to this conflict, she said. “In terms of when that will happen, I’m unfortunately not in the mind of President Putin…. When it will change his calculus, I can’t give a prediction of that.”

Ukraine says Russian forces kill seven civilians in evacuation convoy

LVIV: Ukraine accused Russian forces on Saturday of killing seven civilians in an attack on women and children trying to flee fighting near Kyiv, and France said Russian President Vladimir Putin had shown he was not ready to make peace.

The Ukrainian intelligence service said the seven, including one child, were killed as they fled the village of Peremoha and that “the occupiers forced the remnants of the column to turn back.”

Reuters was unable immediately to verify the report and Russia offered no immediate comment. Moscow denies targeting civilians since invading Ukraine on February 24 and blames Ukraine for failed attempts to evacuate civilians from encircled cities.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said earlier that Moscow was sending in new troops after Ukrainian forces put 31 of Russia’s battalion tactical groups out of action in what he called Russia’s largest army losses in decades. It was not possible to verify his statements.

He also said about 1,300 Ukrainian troops had been killed so far and urged the West to get more involved in peace negotiations. The president suggested Russian forces would face a fight to the death if they sought to enter the capital.

“If they decide to carpet bomb (Kyiv), and simply erase the history of this region … and destroy all of us, then they will enter Kyiv. If that’s their goal, let them come in, but they will have to live on this land by themselves,” he said.

Zelenskiy discussed the war with Chancellor Olaf Scholz and President Emmanuel Macron, and the German and French leaders then spoke to Putin by phone and urged the Russian leader to order an immediate ceasefire.

A Kremlin statement on the 75-minute call made no mention of a ceasefire and a French presidency official said: “We did not detect a willingness on Putin’s part to end the war”.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov accused the United States of escalating tensions and said the situation had been complicated by convoys of Western arms shipments to Ukraine that Russian forces considered “legitimate targets”.

In comments reported by the Tass news agency, Ryabkov made no specific threat, but any attack on such convoys before they reached Ukraine would risk widening the war.

Responding to Zelenskiy’s call for the West to be more involved in peace negotiations, a US State Department spokesperson said: “If there are diplomatic steps that we can take that the Ukrainian government believes would be helpful, we’re prepared to take them.”

Crisis talks between Moscow and Kyiv have been continuing via a video link, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov was quoted as saying by Russia’s RIA news agency. He gave no details but Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said Kyiv would not surrender or accept any ultimatums.

Humanitarian corridors

Air raid sirens blared across most Ukrainian cities on Saturday morning, local media reported.

Russian rocket attacks destroyed a Ukrainian airbase and hit an ammunition depot near the town of Vasylkiv in the Kyiv region, Interfax Ukraine quoted its mayor as saying.

The exhausted-looking governor of Chernihiv, around 150 km (100 miles) northeast of Kyiv, gave a video update in front of the ruins of the city’s Ukraine Hotel, which he said had been hit.

“There is no such hotel any more,” Viacheslav Chaus said, wiping tears from his eyes. “But Ukraine itself still exists, and it will prevail.”

Britain’s defence ministry said fighting northwest of the capital continued, with the bulk of Russian ground forces 25 km (16 miles) from the centre of Kyiv, which it has said Russia could attack within days.

Kharkiv, Chernihiv, Sumy and Mariupol remained encircled under heavy Russian shelling, it said.

Russia’s invasion has been almost universally condemned around the world and that has drawn tough Western sanctions on Russia.

The Russian bombardment has trapped thousands of people in besieged cities and sent 2.5 million Ukrainians fleeing to neighbouring countries. Zelenskiy said the conflict meant some small Ukrainian towns no longer existed.

Russia calls its actions in Ukraine a “special operation” that it says is not designed to occupy territory but to destroy its neighbour’s military capabilities and “de-Nazify” the country.

Ukrainian officials had planned to use humanitarian corridors from Mariupol as well as towns and villages in the regions of Kyiv, Sumy and some other areas on Saturday.

The governor of the Kyiv region, Oleksiy Kuleba, said fighting and threats of Russian air attacks were continuing on Saturday morning though some evacuations were proceeding.

The Donetsk region’s governor said constant shelling was complicating bringing aid into the southern city of Mariupol.

“There are reports of looting and violent confrontations among civilians over what little basic supplies remain in the city,” the U.N.’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said.

“Medicines for life-threatening illnesses are quickly running out, hospitals are only partially functioning, and the food and water are in short supply.”

Makeshift burials

People were boiling groundwater for drinking, using wood to cook food and burying dead bodies near where they lay, a staff member for Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors without Borders) in Mariupol said.

“We saw people who died because of lack of medication,” he said, adding that many people had also been wounded or killed. “Neighbours just dig a hole in the ground and put the dead bodies inside.”

At least 1,582 civilians in Mariupol have been killed as a result of Russian shelling and a 12-day blockade, the city council said on Friday. It was not possible to verify casualty figures.

Efforts to isolate Russia economically have stepped up, with the United States imposing new sanctions on senior Kremlin officials and Russian oligarchs on Friday.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the EU would on Saturday suspend Moscow’s privileged trade and economic treatment, a crackdown on its use of crypto-assets, and ban the import of iron and steel goods from Russia, as well as the export of luxury goods in the other direction.

Russians are encountering resistance from the Ukrainian army to both the east and west of the capital.

KYIV: Ukraine prepared Sunday for a “relentless defence” of Kyiv as the capital faced possible encirclement by advancing Russian forces who have also kept up a bombardment of the besieged southern port city of Mariupol.

In a video address posted on social media late Saturday night, President Volodymyr Zelensky said nevertheless the Russians did not have the strength or spirit to conquer Ukraine.

“The Russian invaders cannot conquer us. They do not have such strength. They do not have such spirit. They are holding only on violence. Only on terror. Only on weapons, which they have a lot,” he said.

A convoy of humanitarian aid headed for Mariupol had been blocked at a Russian checkpoint, but it was hoped it could reach the city Sunday, Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said.

The strategic port, in particular, is facing what Ukraine says is a “humanitarian catastrophe”, with more than 1,500 civilians killed.

Attempts to evacuate hundreds of thousands of civilians have repeatedly failed.

“Mariupol is still surrounded, that which they cannot have by war, (the Russians) want to have by hunger and despair. Since they cannot bring down the Ukrainian army, they target the population,” a French military source said.

A top Russian officer described the situation in stark language.

“Unfortunately, the humanitarian situation in Ukraine is continuing to deteriorate rapidly, and in some cities, it has reached catastrophic proportions,” said the head of the Russian National Defence Control Centre, Mikhail Mizintsev.

In his video address, Zelensky appealed for more aid.

“I keep reiterating to our allies and friends abroad; they have to keep doing more for our country, for Ukrainians and Ukraine. Because it is not only for Ukraine, but it is for all of Europe,” he said.

City under siege

The Russians have advanced far enough to raise fears of Kyiv becoming encircled imminently.

Other cities have already fallen or been surrounded since Russia invaded its neighbour on February 24, with civilians targeted in what the United Nations warned could amount to war crimes.

The key southern port of Odessa was preparing for an offensive by Russian troops, who were concentrating about a hundred kilometres (60 miles) to the east in the city of Mykolaiv.

Mykolaiv, which lies on the road to the strategic port city, has been under attack for days, and an AFP reporter said a hospital there came under fire.

Zelensky said “about 1,300” Ukrainian soldiers had been killed since February 24, giving his country’s first official toll.

He claimed Russia had lost about 12,000 troops while Moscow, for its part, has only given a toll of 498 dead, released on March 2.

At least 579 civilians have been killed, according to a tally Saturday by the United Nations, which stressed that its figures were probably much lower than reality.

The United Nations estimates that almost 2.6 million people have fled Ukraine since the invasion, most of them to Poland, in Europe’s worst refugee crisis since World War II.

In Kyiv, only the roads to the south remain open and the city is preparing to mount a “relentless defence”, according to the Ukrainian presidency.

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said the capital, described by a senior Ukrainian official Friday as a “city under siege”, was reinforcing defences and stockpiling food and medicine.

Britain’s ministry of defence estimated that Russian forces were about 25 kilometres from the capital on Saturday and that a column north of the city had dispersed, reinforcing the indication of an attempt to encircle it.

However, the Russians are encountering resistance from the Ukrainian army to both the east and west of the capital, according to AFP journalists on the spot.

Ukrainian soldiers said they believe the Russians have overestimated their resources, in terms of troops and equipment, and underestimated those of their opponent.

“They have to camp in villages in temperatures of nearly minus 10 Celsius at night. They lack provisions and have to raid houses,” said one soldier, Ilya Berezenko, 27.

Glimmer of hope

Intense efforts at diplomacy continued, with the leaders of France and Germany, Emmanuel Macron and Olaf Scholz, urging Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin during a three-way phone conversation on Saturday to end the deadly blockade, Paris said.

Facing growing international condemnation, Putin sought to turn the tables, slamming Kyiv for what he described as the “flagrant violation” of international humanitarian law and accusing Ukraine´s army of executing dissenters and using civilians as hostages.

The French presidency denounced his accusations, made during the talks with Macron and Scholz, as “lies”.

But in a small glimmer of hope, Zelensky said Saturday that Russia — after appearing unbudging for days — had adopted a “fundamentally different approach” in the latest talks to end the conflict.

He told reporters he was “happy to have a signal from Russia” after Putin spoke of “some positive shifts” in a near-daily dialogue.

As Russia widens its bombardment, Zelensky’s pleas for help have grown increasingly desperate.

Washington and its EU allies have sent funds and military aid to Ukraine and taken action against Russia’s economy and oligarchs. A cultural and sporting boycott has further isolated Moscow.

In the Kyiv suburb of Irpin on Saturday, a Ukrainian soldier who gave his name only as Viktor showed off his British anti-tank missile system and the twisted remains of a Russian vehicle it destroyed.

“I want to say a big thank you to our British comrades helping us,” he said.

As international sanctions against Moscow have steadily tightened, crippling Russia’s economy, the country’s space agency Roscosmos warned Saturday that the International Space Station could crash if Russian spacecraft serving it are affected.

But Washington on Friday added still more layers of sanctions, this time ending normal trade relations and announcing a ban on Russian vodka, seafood and diamonds.

And on Saturday, US President Joe Biden authorised up to $200 million in new weapons and other aid to Ukraine.

But he has ruled out direct action against nuclear-armed Russia, warning that it would lead to “World War III”.

‘Cinders in his lungs’

The situation in Mariupol remains “desperate”, according to Doctors Without Borders, with no water or heating — and food supplies dwindling.

“Hundreds of thousands of people… are for all intents and purposes besieged,” Stephen Cornish, one of those heading the medical charity’s Ukraine operation, told AFP.

He called sieges “a medieval practice” long outlawed.

In Kharkiv, in the east, doctors at a hospital described spending two days pumping ash from the stomach of an eight-year-old boy whose home was struck by a Russian missile.

“He still has cinders in his lungs,” Dima Kasyanov’s doctor told AFP.

Foreign combatants have entered the conflict on both sides, and on Friday, the Kremlin ramped up efforts to bring in reinforcements, particularly from Syria.

In the Russian-held city of Melitopol, Zelensky said, 2,000 people protested against the kidnapping Friday of the mayor by Russian troops.

He called on Macron and Scholz to help secure Ivan Fedorov’s release, which he said opened a “new stage of terror”.

Seventeen days into Ukraine’s war against Russia, kind-hearted Scots continue to work hard for the Ukrainian war effort.

School pupils in Perthshire have sent beds to refugee reception centres.

And the Scots-supported charity Dnipro kids is trying to break through red tape to bring orphans to waiting families in Scotland.

Whether it’s selling bread and cakes, raising cash or finding homes, people want to do more.

On Friday, a truckload of flatpack bunk beds made its way from Strathallan School near Perth to Grodzisk Mazowiecki, just outside Warsaw in Poland.

Pupils at the independent school had organised a collection of beds and bedding after an appeal directly from Poland.

Businessman Iain Gordon, who owns a medical research company, has colleagues in Ukraine and children at the school. He asked them to help.

“We were given very specific requests for aid that is required in Poland for refugees coming across the border,” he said. “We asked the school if they could provide us with a facility to receive and store this stuff and asked a removals company if they could lend us a lorry and it all came together within a week.”

“We have about 100 beds, 200 sets of bedding, towels, duvets pillows, etc. These are going to a reception centre for refugees in Grodzisk Mazowiecki just outside Warsaw. What they needed was beds and bunk beds.”

Iain’s employees – mostly doctors – were until recently working on a new Covid vaccine.

He said: “Two weeks ago their world fell in. They are adamant they are not going to leave the country. They want to stay there and support their fellow citizens.”

“Our country manager there, Andre, told me things last week were very difficult up and down to the bomb shelter eight or 10 times a day sending the night in subways and car parks. This morning they said there were bombardments 20-30k from Kyiv. We can’t say they are safe but they are well.”

Ukrainian Strathallan pupil Dmytro Borysov was in Lviv when the invasion began.

He was home for the half-term holiday and his parents immediately got him back to Scotland. At 18, he just missed the order that men aged 18-60 would have to remain in the country and fight.

“I went home for half term in February,” he told BBC Scotland. “Everything was okay. It was a usual day and I went to sleep then woke up at 05:00 because there was an alarm around the city. Everyone was panicked and didn’t know what to do.

“My parents said we have to leave the country because myself and my sister study in the UK.

“Everyone was trying to leave Ukraine. There were big queues in customs and it was very different than it was before.

“After a few days our president said boys and men from 18 to 60 are not allowed to leave the country because they have to go to the military.”

Dmytro is happy his friends are supporting him.

The Edinburgh charity Dnipro Kids, set up by Hibs FC fans after a Uefa Cup match in 2005, has managed to get 29 Ukrainian orphans to safety across the Polish border but is now struggling with red tape to bring them back to Scotland to be looked after.

The children, aged between six and 17, came from orphanages around Dnipro in southern Ukraine. Their coach crossed the border on Thursday evening after taking six hours to get through border control.

Dozens more orphans were expected to follow by train while others remain in the city.

The charity’s chairman Steven Carr, who has been travelling with the children, said homes and care had been arranged for them in Scotland.

“The only thing that needs to happen for us to be able to bring the kids back is for the UK government to say that it’s ok to bring them in,” he told the BBC.

“We’ve got the support network in place, we’ve got the funding in place, the children know us and trust us, and that’s it, that’s all we’re asking. Let us in.”

The UK government is due to set out details of a scheme which will allow people to welcome Ukrainians fleeing the conflict into their homes next week as well as allowing companies and communities to sponsor refugees.

Mr Carr said it needed to set up the sponsorship scheme quickly and make it easy.

“The longer it takes the more pain and suffering you’re putting the kids through. We’ve got them away from the initial worry of being stuck in Dnipro but they’re still in limbo,” he said.

Fundraising, big and small also continues across the country by those with links to the country and those who are watching the horrors of invasion on TV.

Ukrainian national Yuriy Kachak used his Deanston Bakery in Shawlands, Glasgow, to raise cash for humanitarian aid.

Since a bake sale attracted hundreds of supporters a week ago, his total was doubled when a donor matched the funds raised.

The total so far has reached more than £81,000.

Month: March 2022